I don't think it's a calculated effort to raise NAEP scores, but I do think it's calculated to raise MSA scores in individual schools and/or counties, resulting in reading the test being done a whole lot more than necessary.

I would bet that MCPS has a much, much higher exclusion rate than the other counties. MCPS has a track record for manipulating test outcomes. Of all the school systems, they have been most notorious in teaching to the test. On tests that are not required to be made public immediately, they hide the results if the outcome is poor (Rockville and county wide math failures). The only reason Starr is promoting a hiatus on testing is that they are in a panic that there will be a big drop in scores when PARCC hits and 2.0 hasn't prepared students. Notice that Starr only wants a hiatus on testing, they want time to inject prep. MCPS promotes itself as one of the best in the country but those numbers only hold true against a smaller set of larger systems, most in urban areas with much broader problems. They don't promote that fact. Yes, MCPS has a reputation for scrimping but trying to hide it. If they can exclude from a test, they will do this in a heartbeat. Its cheaper to exclude than remediate.

Its also one of the largest systems in the country so adverse behaviors and a significant exclude rate would affect MD numbers significantly.

Anonymous wrote:I would like to see the exclusion breakdown by county. Its likely that the problem isn't necessarily statewide but something screwy with MCPS.

Why do you say this?

There are about 850,000 public school students in Maryland. There are about 150,000 public school students in MCPS. 83% of Maryland public school students are not in MCPS.

I would like to see the exclusion breakdown by county. Its likely that the problem isn't necessarily statewide but something screwy with MCPS.

Anonymous wrote:http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/md-exclusion-of-special-ed-students-affects-national-scores/2013/11/24/9b390054-53b2-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html?hpid=z6

What is the consensus; does MD just do things differently or was this a calculated effort to raise the scores?

I don't know about a "calculated effort" to raise the scores, but I agree with the point of the article -- that MD offers accommodations instead of remediating. That has been our experience. We asked many times for MD to provide remediation in certain areas. Instead, the IEP team refused and said that the accommodation (a different one than read-aloud) would suffice. Since we wanted our child to actually learn the skill and thought DC was capable of learning with special instruction, we removed DC from MCPS and sent him to a special ed school where he is learning the skill and can now perform without accommodation.

I am very concerned about MCPS's program of reading instruction. IME, it typically doesn't offer any direct, explicit instruction in phonic concepts except in K and the very basic letter/sound combinations. Many kids could benefit from more explicit higher level instruction in phonic letter/sound combinations, sound segmentation, encoding/decoding, etc. But, MCPS doesn't offer this, except thru very specific programs offered only to kids who are two or more years behind or who are falling below the basic/proficient cut score on the MAP. The end result is that many kids who receive accommodations, haven't gotten proper direct, explicit instruction that could allow them to master reading skills. This, to me, was the point of the article you linked.

IME, the IEP team had very low achievement standards for our child and when I expressed concern about our child not being able to get remediation and thus not being able to perform in the future on exams where certain kinds of accommodations were not allowed, their attitude was "well, we can excuse the student from that" or "we can create an alternative assessment".

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/md-exclusion-of-special-ed-students-affects-national-scores/2013/11/24/9b390054-53b2-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html?hpid=z6

What is the consensus; does MD just do things differently or was this a calculated effort to raise the scores?